Lily Luo

Ph.D. Candidate

Political Science

I am currently finishing up my dissertation titled “Learning to Transform: The Revolutionary Legacy of Grace Lee Boggs.” Using various feminist and decolonial methodologies, I explore Grace’s legacy through personal reflection, archival research, and conversations with contemporary Detroit activists committed to the visionary organizing that James and Grace Lee Boggs embodied.

I teach courses on community organizing, political theory in film, and visionary political imagination. In my spare time, I love to garden, cook Chinese food for friends, and write poems about liberation. In the past, I have worked in Boston as a community organizer and facilitator, fighting for racial and economic justice with seniors and people of faith around Massachusetts.

My most recent work, “Grace Lee Boggs on Chinese Political Thought and the Next American Revolution,” co-authored with Fred Lee, can be found in Theory & Event’s first Asian/American Political Thought Symposium. My chapter, “Education to Govern” about James and Grace Lee Boggs’ pedagogical philosophy and my own classroom experiences is due to appear in an upcoming anthology Educating for A Multiracial Democracy. Find out more about my work on my website.